Hifuu Club Investigations No1 - First Encounter with Another Life Form
by DizzyHMuffin
Summary: Maribel Hearn is a perfectly out-of-the-ordinary college student at Kyoto University, who can see into other worlds in her dreams. One day, she meets fellow student Usami Renko, who also has a strange power. Together, they form the Secret Sealing Club, an occult investigation team, but they soon learn that there's more to Maribel's ability than meets the eye. [KS #2]
1. Prologue: A Scattering of Dreams

**Prologue: A Scattering of Dreams**

 _I dreamed that I was wandering along the edge of a deep ravine with a river at the bottom — narrow enough that the sunlight had trouble reaching the water, but not narrow enough that I could jump across. I could faintly make out the hexagonal shapes of columnar joints, suggesting that it had been formed by volcanism. I looked around, and saw a great big mountain over to the northwest, almost directly behind me. Or maybe it was the southeast, and it was the morning instead of the afternoon? Within the dream, I tried to interpret_ why _I was dreaming about such a deep, dark crevasse, but my mind only produced incoherent gibberish._

 _Eventually, I heard voices coming from below, speaking in Japanese. I peered into it, and thought I faintly saw four figures in the darkness — three smaller girls with wings, and a taller girl with a pointy witch hat._

 _"... the sunlight only reaches the river at certain times of day," the witch was saying. "Then it reflects off the water and into the caves, and that makes the moss glow. It's too late to see it today."_

 _"Aww ..." The winged girls seemed disappointed._

 _"But wait!" One of them perked up and poked at one of the others. "You could make it shine, couldn't you, Sunny?" The name 'Sunny' was in English._

 _"Huh? Oh! Right, Star!" ("Star" was in English, too.) The second girl stood up straight. "Yeah, I can make it shine right now!"_

 _"It won't work, it's only natural sunlight that does it," said the witch._

 _"Natural sunlight it is, then!" said Sunny. She pointed at the sky, and suddenly seemed to have a spotlight shining at her. I could now see that the three smaller girls were younger children who looked exactly as I'd imagined fairies would look, and the witch was a teenager with blonde hair. The three fairies all started oohing and ahhing at something at something I couldn't see in a nearby cave._

 _"Whoa, what?" The witch laughed. "You didn't tell me you could do_ that _!"_

 _Sunny beamed (figuratively this time). "Surprised, Marisa?" she said. "I can refract sunlight wherever I want!"_

 _"That is totally awesome," said the witch. "I bet you could pull off all_ kinds _o' pranks with that!"_

 _"Ooh, you getting ideas, Marisa?" said Star._

 _"Hah!" Marisa shot them a cheeky grin. "Star, the day a group of fairies need help from a_ human _for comin' up with a good prank ..."_

 _"Oh, yeah, good point," Star said seriously._

 _"Fairies, that explains it," I murmured, completely spuriously. (Whenever I remembered speaking aloud in these otherworld-dreams, I always thought I sounded sleep-deprived, or slightly drunk.) Equally-spuriously, I got up and started walking away._

 _Eventually, the crevice veered off in another direction. I found myself approaching a large forest that seemed to have an uncanny atmosphere. I woke up before I reached it, though._

* * *

 _I dreamed of an old city with a red sky. The inhabitants took no notice of me as I walked down the street, or at least no more than they paid attention to each other; most of them seemed humanoid, but I just knew in the dream that they were all demons and monsters. Most of them walked, or rode in coaches that seemed to be propelled by magic, but a few of them flew above the ground. Not all of the fliers had wings, either._

 _My wanderings took me into an old library. I came across a table stacked with books, where a little girl in blue and white with short blonde hair was studying and taking notes with her back to me. In the dream, I thought she looked exactly like a short-haired Alice in Wonderland._

 _Presently, an older Asian woman with golden hair walked up behind her. She looked over the girl's shoulder, and whispered, "You misspelled 'Murgatroyd.'"_

 _The girl guiltily shoved a few papers aside. "W-what are you talking about!?" she stammered in hushed tones. "That's, that's my name!"_

 _"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry," said the older woman._

 _"Um ... r-right!" said the little girl. "Um, hey, didn't I see you playing that fiddle on the street there?"_

 _"Oh, yes, I think I remember seeing you, Miss Alice," said the woman. "It's called an erhu. My name is Rin, by the way."_

 _"Oh, hey, nice duds," said someone right next to me._

 _"Hmm?" I turned; the speaker was another blonde girl in a white sailor uniform with purple trim._

 _She smiled, gesturing vaguely to me. "I said nice duds," she said. "Pretty snappy outfit you got there."_

 _"Oh ... thanks." I glanced down at myself, then blinked as I realized I was wearing a white shirt and a dark purple skirt._

 _Wait, hang on. Was this the exact same combo I'd been wearing when I'd ... fallen asleep? How had I fallen asleep in the first place?_

 _"Name's Luize," said the girl. "Is this the first time you've ...?"_

 _I stared down at myself. What did all this mean? Wait, now that I was aware that I was dreaming, I could try to lucid dream! No, wait, don't wake up! Don't wake —_

I woke up.

I groaned and pushed myself up into a sitting position. My head was uncomfortable where it had been lying on my computer's keyboard, which fortunately hadn't been damaged. I _knew_ I'd had an otherworld dream, but it seemed that something had surprised me awake, so I couldn't remember it now.

I looked down at myself blearily. Oh, right, someone had said something like "nice duds", and I'd been surprised awake by the discovery that I was wearing the same thing in the dream as I had in the waking world. And ... I'd tried to lucid dream, and failed? Damn it, I couldn't remember ...

* * *

 _I dreamed that I was wandering along a sandy beach on the Moon, with the Earth hanging above me in the star-filled sky. To my left, there was a perfectly still and silent ocean; to my right, there were artificial trees and elegant brick walls. The presence of water and a breathable atmosphere didn't seem particularly strange to me in the dream._

 _Presently, I came across a group of soldiers with rifles, marching back and forth in formation. They all looked like young women with rabbit ears, wearing black formal jackets and pale red skirts which looked for all the world like some sort of school uniform. One of them wore a white helmet, and barked orders in Japanese._

 _The group happened to swing around to face me, and a look of terror briefly crossed the leader's face as she saw me. "Company, halt!" she said. "Who's that?" The entire group degenerated into chattering chaos as they all tried to get a good look at me at once._

 _"Is that a ghost?" "Can't be, death can't touch the Moon!" "That looks like a nightgown!" "Why's she transparent?" "Is she from Earth?"_

 _"Fall back into position!" shouted the leader. The rabbits slowly and reluctantly started getting back into some semblance of order._

 _"What's going on here?" A princess with silvery-lavender hair in a ponytail approached from inland, one hand on a large katana at her hip._

 _"L-Lady Yorihime!" squeaked the rabbit-leader. The other rabbits moved back into formation as fast as they could, and saluted. "This ... this 'being' just showed up all of a sudden!"_

 _"Hello," I said. "... I'm Maribel."_

 _Yorihime gripped her katana more tightly, and gave me a Look. It wasn't exactly a glare, but it was clear that she'd already formed opinions about whether I was friend or foe. "And just how did you come to the Capital of the Moon?"_

 _"Dunno," I said._

 _"She looks like she's dreaming," said one of the rabbits._

 _Yorihime turned to give her a sharp look, but her expression softened as she turned back to face me. "Hmm ... yes, that sounds about right," she said, letting go of her sword. "I'm afraid you're dreaming at the moment, Miss Maribel. I think it would be a good idea if you woke up right away."_

 _"Oh, okay," I said, and immediately woke up._

I started giggling uncontrollably. _That_ was going to be a fun entry in my dream diary ...

* * *

"Oh, okay," said the ghostly blonde girl, and then immediately vanished.

Yorihime snorted. "Well, that was anticlimactic."

"Who _was_ that?" said the rabbit squad leader.

"I don't know," said Yorihime. "But it seems your subordinate was correct: she was somehow astral-projecting to the Moon while she was asleep. How troubling ..."


	2. Chapter 1: First Encounter

**Author Notes:** This fic is set in the same AU as "A Different Demon-Sealing Record", but it's not necessary to have read that in order to fully appreciate this story. The AU in question is a sort of ... alternative to how things could have happened, given a couple of changed premises. (And also me doing whatever I want, which is basically the point of fanfic in general.)

This one is based on Changeability of Strange Dream. It's also based on the fact that I've never seen any stories about how Renko and Merry first met.

* * *

 ** _SECRET SEALING CLUB INVESTIGATIONS_ No.1**

 ** _First Encounter with Another Life Form_**

 **Chapter 1: First Encounter**

My name is Maribel Hearn. I guess I'd better start at the beginning, back when everything looked like it made sense.

On the outside, I was a perfectly ordinary American girl, studying abroad at Kyoto University for reasons which had probably sounded _brilliant_ when I was seventeen, and which I could barely remember seven years later. I shouldn't really complain too hard, though; this is where I met Renko, after all. It's also where I stopped being able to ignore my own weirdness, and my life was turned on its head forever.

We happened to meet in an Existentialism in Film class, of all places. Kyoto University isn't a liberal arts college by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought the subject matter looked interesting at a glance, and the professors of the more eclectic courses tended to be enthusiastic about the material.

My interest would be short-lived.

As the various students wandered into the classroom, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, which was the usual state of affairs. It was my blonde hair, of course; I was lost in a sea of black and brown. As usual, the boys were all wearing the kind of casual wear that had been more-or-less fashionable for the past fifty years with only slight variations, and all the girls wore bright colors and soft styles — cute was the in-thing for Japanese women's fashions in 2065. My own outfit was a mauve blouse, a matching skirt with a white ribbon-belt, and a white mob cap: distinctive, without looking like an over-designed anime character.

"Welcome to Existentialism in Film," said Professor Asakura, a brightly-smiling balding gentleman in his forties. "Today is the first day you will embark on a journey which will combine the only _true_ modern medium of art with one of the purest forms of philosophy."

I thought I heard someone behind me let out an exasperated sigh. I just ... smiled politely.

"Now, I understand that most of you have downloaded the syllabus onto your various _devices_ ," Professor Asakura continued, "but I'm a bit of a traditionalist, so I'll be passing them out to you on paper."

I wondered what the hell kind of "tradition" he was talking about; he couldn't have been more than, what, forty-five years old? _Maybe_ forty-eight, if I wanted to push it. I surreptitiously checked his faculty bio on my phone. Yeah, 2022, he was forty- _three_.

"Now, this is of course just the syllabus day, but we're going to be jumping right in on Monday," said Professor Asakura. "Some of you have asked if we'll be examining 'popular' works such as The Swords in the Sky, but I think we can set our sights higher than that, can't we? We'll be starting on an overview of the oeuvre of Kurosawa Akira, followed Ingmar Bergman ..."

I grabbed my backpack and scooted out of my seat, and saw that the girl behind me was doing the same thing. Our eyes met, and we both grinned.

We escaped from the classroom without incident. "It sounded like he was holding the word 'devices' with goddamn _tongs_ ," she said, slipping on a black hat with a white bow. She was a skinny girl about my age, wearing a white button-down shirt and a black skirt.

"Yeah, that and 'popular'," I said. "I've never seen that much enthusiasm mixed with passive-aggressive disdain before. I was only there to pad my electives."

"Same here, plus his niece Rikako is one of my study partners," she said. "I should've listened to her warnings ... Anyway, my name's Usami Renko, what's yours?"

"Maribel Hearn, nice to meet you," I said. "That's with family-name last."

She nodded. "Nice to meet you too, Ma ... eri ... baeri ..." Her face went red, and her smile crumbled. "... um ... Miss ... Han."

I smiled back _very_ politely. Well, that wasn't even the worst my name had gotten mangled that year. I said, "'Miss Hearn' is fine, Miss Usami." Which was a few notches more formal than you usually had between students, but whatever.

We made our way through the hallway. "So, uh ..." Renko looked like she was trying to find something less embarrassing to talk about. "What's your major? Mine's theoretical physics."

"Psychology, here," I said. "I've been poking at the handful of liberal arts courses they've got here just because the professors are always so enthusiastic about them."

"Well, yeah, but at the same time, you get guys like Asakura Jiro," said Renko. "I've been heading online to scratch that particular itch."

"That's fair," I said.

We went around a corner, and I could see the boundary between the two hallways. It was just a faintly-visible "edge", separating the concept of "the hallway containing the classroom we just left" from "the hallway containing the exit."

I decided to ... bring up the subject. Not to reveal my "second sight", but just to talk about the general idea. It probably wouldn't lead anywhere, it never had before, but I could still hope. Someday, I'd meet someone I could talk to about my special eyes. For some reason, I felt that hope stirring when I looked at Renko's face.

"Actually, I've been thinking of doing the same thing," I said. "I'm kind of interested in things like ... modern mythology, the occult, that sort of thing, but I've never really seen anything good here."

"Oh, you too?" said Renko. "Yeah, I've just had trouble finding professors who have interesting to say."

That hope stirred again. At least she didn't sound _disinterested_. But I kept my voice neutral. "Maybe we should look for a student club or something."

We stepped out into the warm April evening, and started wandering southward; the building we'd just left was way off in the northeast corner of the main campus. It was just warm enough that I was starting to wish I'd worn short sleeves. The sky in the west was a motley orange, and the rest of the sky was black against the city lights.

Renko looked thoughtful. "Actually, I've looked into that," she said. "There aren't any clubs like that at the moment, but when my great-aunt Sumireko was in high school, she started this thingy called ... the Secret Sealing Club."

"Hifuu Club," I echoed. "What kind of club was it? It doesn't quite sound like what we're talking about."

"Well, it was more of an occult _investigation_ deal," she said. "Chasing ghosts in graveyards, kind of thing. Not something you'd do in a classroom."

"I see," I said. "Were there many members?"

"No, it was actually always just her," said Renko. "The impression I got was that she was kind of using it to try to _avoid_ making friends? She was sort of a pompous loner when she was fifteen. No friends, no boyfriend ... though I've had the opposite problem," she added under her breath.

"The opposite problem?" I said. "Too many suitors?"

Renko looked slightly tense, as if she hadn't meant to say that aloud. "Uh ... no, I'm gay."

"Oh, got it," I said. "I'm bi, for the record." Actually, I identified as panromantic and demisexual, but I couldn't remember the Japanese word for either concept off the top of my head. "Also, I can't believe it's the year AD 2065, and we still have to do this whole contrived _dance_ about sexual orientation."

She laughed, but I could tell she was relieved. "You're telling me," she said. "But anyway ... where was I?"

"Your great-aunt Sumireko in high school?" I said.

"Oh, right," said Renko. "Not much else to say about high school, but she left the Secret Sealing club to my other aunt Keiko, and _she_ gave the materials and things to me when I was ten because I was already on an occultism kick." She glanced at the sky to the east. "If you're interes—"

I saw ... _something_ in Renko's eyes.

The instant her gaze turned to the sky, a boundary blossomed into view around her eyes, representing a _difference_ between them and the rest of the universe. It wasn't a difference in substance, and it wasn't exactly a difference in location — insofar as every physical object has an inside and an outside, geographically speaking — but there was something in Usami Renko's eyes which _meant_ something different from the rest of the world.

My head whipped around to follow her gaze. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. A few stars were faintly visible against the city lights.

"Miss ... Han ...?"

I turned back to face Renko, who looked like she was about to panic. The boundaries in her eyes had faded, but I realized they'd always been there. I could still see them, very faintly. "What ... were you looking at?"

"What did you see?" she said urgently.

"I ..." I shook my head. Several people were watching us. I lowered my voice and said, "I just saw ... _something_ in your eyes when you looked at the sky!"

Renko stared at me for several seconds. Then she took a few deep breaths, and shook her head. "This way."

We took a winding route away from the crowds, and found a spot at the edge of the campus where we had a good view of the darkening night sky.

Renko looked up at the sky. The boundary returned in full force.

"The current date is Thursday, 2 April 2065 at 18:35:43, Japan Standard Time," she said. "And our current location is 35 degrees 1 minutes 38 and a half seconds North, 135 degrees 47 minutes 2 seconds East," she added. "Not as impressive, since Kyoto University's location is well-documented, but ..."

I pulled my phone out of my purse and opened the GPS. 35°01'38.6"N, 135°47'02.3"E. The time changed to 6:36 PM as I watched. "No, I'd say that's ... pretty good, Miss Usami," I said. My heart was thumping in my chest.

Renko was still looking at the sky. "I can see the date and time and my location by looking at the stars," she said. "... even if it's hard to see them because of the city lights." She looked back down at me. "So ... what did _you_ see, Miss Han?"

I looked into her eyes, trying to get my breathing under control. "A boundary," I said. "Some kind of ... difference between your eyes and everything else. It's almost invisible now, but I can see it bright and clear when you look at the sky."

Renko nodded slowly. "So you can see a supernatural power there."

"Sort of," I said. "I can tell it has something to do with your ability, but I don't think I'm just ... seeing magic, exactly." I looked around; there wasn't anyone near us at the moment. "I define my power as the ability to see 'boundaries'," I said. "Mostly geographical boundaries, like I could see the boundary between the two hallways when we went around a corner, and I can see the boundary of the edge of campus right in front of us, but I've seen ... 'meaningful' ones before."

"I think I get it," said Renko. Her earlier panic had faded, and seemed to have been replaced by scientific curiosity. She turned to look back up at the stars. "So what kind of boundary are you seeing in my eyes?"

"Um ..." I looked at her face for a moment. "I'm not quite sure, which is unusual in and of itself, but ..." Then something clicked. "... I'm pretty sure I've seen it in my dreams before."

"Your dreams?" she said, still looking at the sky.

"Yeah, I ... sometimes have dreams about other worlds," I said. "The kind of worlds with magic, and gods, that sort of thing." I was less sure of that than I was of the other details, but it just seemed right to describe it that way. "They all seemed to have that ... I guess it was as if I was seeing the worlds through the same boundary as the one I'm see around your eyes. Or I was wrapped in a Maribel-shaped boundary, maybe, and what was inside your eyes was in the world around me."

"Interesting," said Renko, turning back to face me. "So you have more than one power?"

"No, my dreams are part of my boundary-vision as well," I said. I hesitated. "I mean ... I don't _think_ they're separate ..."

"Then they probably aren't," said Renko. "When I was figuring out _my_ power, I kept having these gut feelings about what I could or couldn't do with it or how it worked, and every time I tested them, the gut instincts were always right."

"Oh, really?" I said. "Then, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a subset of the same ability. And your eyes ..." I thought about this for a moment, then shook my head. "Still drawing a blank, sorry. All I know is that it's the exact same boundary I can see in my dreams of fantasy-worlds."

"That's too bad," said Renko. "How well do you remember these dreams?"

"Well enough to keep a dream dairy," I said. "Except when I'm surprised awake, for some reason."

Renko nodded. "I'd like to see the diary, if that's all right. Uh, and you can translate it into Japanese."

"No problem," I said. "I've written everything in Japanese since I came over from America, anyway."

"All right," she said. "Sorry I'm asking a bunch of questions, Miss Han, it's just ..." She grinned. "I just never expected to meet someone else with some kind of power, y'know?"

I grinned back. "Same here," I said. "I mean, I did kind of raise the subject of the occult on purpose, but I didn't actually think, uh ..."

"Yeah, I mean, wow," said Renko. "This is kind of exciting?" She laughed. "I don't even know where to go from here!"

"Me neither, really," I said.

"Do you ..." Renko hesitated. "Do you know if it runs in your family, or anything that?"

"Maybe-possibly," I said. "My family on my dad's side has apparently been quote 'spiritually sensitive since ancient times' unquote, according to a sort of family mythology, but I don't actually know what that would mean in practical terms. Why? Does it run in yours?"

"Maybe-possibly here, too," said Renko. "My great-aunt Usami Sumireko supposedly had psychic powers, but I don't actually know if it was true or not because that was actually the least-weird thing about her."

"Oh boy," I said, grinning. "This'll be good ..."

"Okay," said Renko, grinning back. "Basically ..." I could tell that she'd kept this all bottled up, just like I had, and was relishing the opportunity to finally talk to someone else about it. "There were all sorts of weird stories and rumors about her. Like how, when she was fifteen, she once supposedly fought against a shrine maiden in the skies above Tokyo."

I laughed. "What? Who won?"

"The shrine maiden, I think," said Renko. "Or maybe it was a shrine-maiden themed magical girl, it wasn't quite clear. But around the same time, she also started taking these legendary power naps, sleeping through class, and generally ruining her waking life."

"Okay ..." I said.

"Then one day in 2016, about a year after that," she said, "she got this great big fish, took one of her naps ... and then the fish _vanished_. It was just _gone_. No evidence that it was ever there in the first place."

"Wow," I said. "That's amazing, Miss Usami."

"And the stories just go _on and on_ like that!" said Renko, shaking her head. Then her expression sobered. "And then about seven years before I was born, she just disappeared one day. She just posted a status about heading to the bus stop for work, and no one ever saw her again."

"Really?" I said. "Like ... the fish?"

Renko shook her head. "I've thought of a dozen ways she could've snuck _that_ back out, assuming it even happened in the first place, but for an actual _person_ to disappear ... I don't know." She shrugged, and gazed back up at the evening sky. "For all I know, she actually found something in one of her supernatural investigations."

"How likely is _that_?" I said.

Renko shrugged, and made a face. "Well ... there's you and me," she said. Her grin returned. "Still, though, you've got to admit that I have quite the legacy to live up to, huh?"

"No argument here," I said.

"So, Miss Han," said Renko, "would you like to join the Secret Sealing Club?"

"Of course, Miss Usami!" I said, grinning.


	3. Chapter 2: Surprised Awakening

**Chapter 2: Surprised Awakening**

 _That night, in my dream, I was wandering down a road made of blue glass tiles, floating in an eerie black starry void. It was slightly chilly, and I wished I'd been wearing something warmer than my nightgown. As I walked, I saw an odd-looking red-walled mansion at the end of the road, with three women and a large tortoise standing around in front._

 _"... certainly been a long time since you've caused enough trouble to get the Hakurei Shrine Maiden's attentions, eh, Kazami?" That was an older graying woman in her sixties, wearing a black high-collar cape, and a black hat with a white ribbon around it. She looked slightly familiar, and then I realized in the dream that she must have been Usami Renko's great-aunt Sumireko._

 _She was speaking to a green-haired woman in red gingham; the woman seemed old enough to be an adult, but for some reason, I couldn't really get a handle on how old she was. "I just got completely bored," she said languidly. "Gensokyo's youkai have become toothless in recent years, nobody's_ afraid _of us now." In the dream, I wondered whether I should translate it into English as something like "The Land of Illusion's monsters", or whether it would be better just to leave it as the transliteration. "That said, I'm afraid I'm disappointed," she continued. "It was nothing like fighting Hakurei Reimu."_

 _"Well_ anyone _would come up short if you compared them to_ Reimu _," said the other, a girl in her late teens with long jet-black hair, dressed in the traditional robes of a Shinto shrine maiden. She suddenly let out a great big yawn. "... ugh, jeez ... How can you even get up this early, Sumireko?"_

 _Sumireko chuckled. "Oh, Miyume, you can get used to_ anything _if you do it for enough decades," she said. "Chalk it up to systematically destroying my own sleep schedule when I was your age."_

 _"In most cases, any Incident which requires your attention can wait until daytime, Miss Hakurei," said an old man's voice. I tried to figure out who was talking, and realized it was the tortoise. Which I then noticed had a bushy white beard. "Kazami Yuuka's ... prank this morning was merely an exceptional case."_

 _"Oh, you_ flatter _me, old man!" said Yuuka, smiling sweetly._

 _Miyume grumbled, then yawned again. "Can we head back to the Shrine?"_

 _"Righto," said Sumireko. "Some of us still sleep from time to time."_

 _"I'd say 'from time to time' is the root of_ your _problem, Usami," said Yuuka. She looked sidelong at Miyume. "But perhaps the Shrine Maiden will be more fun once she can bring her goddess into the fight, and when she's fully-rested," she added sweetly._

 _"Don't you dare!" growled Miyume, as she started climbing onto the tortoise's back. "If you — hm?" She looked directly at me. "Who's that?"_

 _I was suddenly the center of everyone's attentions. I smiled nervously, and waved. "Hello," I said softly._

 _"Looks like someone's astral-projecting," said Sumireko. "Probably in her sleep, too, judging by that nightgown. Though ... she doesn't seem as aware of things as when I was fifteen."_

 _I frowned. Wait ... "fifteen"? Hadn't that been when ...?_

 _"Hm, I've met her before," said Yuuka, smiling towards me. "Though I'd be interested to learn how the hell she managed to astral-project into Mugenkan."_

 _But I was too busy staring at Sumireko. It was! Was this the real Usami Sumireko? I fought to keep from waking up. If she'd been astral-projecting into magical worlds in her sleep, then —_

I blinked awake.

I stared at the ceiling of my apartment, trying to remember the dream, but only a few scattered details remained. Between that and the sour feeling of adrenaline churning my stomach, something had obviously startled me awake.

I sat up, cursing under my breath, and fumbled around for my phone. 5:54 PM, _much_ too early. Though that jogged my memory about a detail from the dream. Nothing for it but to put it in my dream diary, and then toss and turn for another hour or two.

 _"2065-04-03: Otherworld dream,"_ I typed. _"Usami Sumireko and a shrine maiden were talking about waking up too early."_ I stared at what I'd written. I _knew_ there'd been someone else there, but I was drawing a complete blank.

I sighed, wondering why surprise always ruined my memories of my dreams. My instincts weren't as clear or coherent as Renko's had apparently been. But even as I had that thought, I was struck by the possibility that it was because I wasn't waking up properly. I turned the thought over in my head; even though I didn't have any rational reason for thinking there was a connection, the idea just ... seemed right. I wasn't waking up properly, so I ... it wasn't ...

Hmm. I was drawing a blank beyond _that_ , too.

Well, that aside, that left the question of exactly what kind of boundary I was seeing in Renko's eyes. It wasn't just the boundary between dreams and reality, but I knew it had to have something to do with ...

... with the fact that they were always dreams of "another world." A world of fantasy. A world separate _in principle_ from the rational, magic-free world I lived in while I was awake.

"Ohhhhh," I said. It was all I could do to resist calling up Renko that very minute.

* * *

We arranged a meeting at a small open-air cafe northwest of the main campus. Renko was five minutes late.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, smiling nervously. "You know how it is."

"Miss Usami ..." Well, it wasn't as though there were any stars out at the moment. I grinned, and shook my head. "Don't worry about it."

We made our selections on the touchscreen menu; I just picked the same type of green tea she had. "So, Miss Han," said Renko, "you said you had urgent Secret Sealing Club business?"

"Did I say it was urgent?" I said. "Well, I didn't mean ... _urgent_ -urgent, but I think I've figured out what kind of boundary I was seeling in your eyes."

"Really?" said Renko, looking me straight in the eye as if she was trying to see something in _my_ eyes. "Let's hear it!"

I regarded her eyes for a moment. It was only faintly visible, and I had to strain slightly to be sure I wasn't just imagining it. "Fair warning, this is going to involve a bunch of philosophizing," I said.

"I'm _good_ with philosophy, Miss ... Han ..." Renko hesitated. "Uh, actually, is it all right if I call you 'Merry'?"

"'Merry'?" I said, tilting my head. That was a bit of a surprise. Back in America, "Maribel" had been short enough for most people, and the rest had gone with something like "Bel" or "Bella." I'd gotten "Mary" once or twice, but ...

Renko looked awkward. "Well, I mean ... I'm really sorry for screwing up your name yesterday, and I'm not even sure I've got 'Han' right, and ..." She laughed nervously. "It feels kind of ... overly-formal to be 'Miss Usami' and 'Miss Han', and ... yeah ..."

"I don't mind at all, uh, Renko," I said quickly, because she looked like she was about to run away in embarrassment. "I was honestly kind of feeling the same way about the formality."

"Okay, good." Renko grinned, looking relieved. "So, you were saying, Merry?"

I found myself grinning back. Uh-oh, was I getting a crush? Yeah, no, there was no _way_ that kind of complication could end well, and I didn't want to ruin my acquaintanceship with the only other person I'd ever met with an unambiguously supernatural power. (I later learned that Renko was having the exact same train of thought, except with extra "I'm too gay for this!")

"So ..." I hurriedly moved my thoughts back on track. "The world that we inhabit, on the surface, appears to be a rational mundane world, where everything comes down to math, physics, and science. If there is something we do not understand, then that lack of understanding is an attribute of our own minds, _not_ that of the universe. If you perceive that something is mysterious, confusing, or frightening, that does not mean the phenomenon in question has some intrinsic quality of mystery, confusion, or fright; that's what's called the mind projection fallacy. It just means that _you yourself_ were mystified, confused, or frightened."

Renko was nodding along. "And once we understand the phenomenon in question, we no longer have those reactions," she said. "Unless it's something proven to be dangerous, in which case being afraid is reasonable ... but then it's no longer the irrational fear of the unknown, is it."

"Right," I said. I paused as a cylindrical serving-robot trundled over and carefully placed a tea tray on the table. "Now, even though you and I have seen evidence against this with our own eyes ..."

"And _in_ our own eyes," Renko murmured.

I grinned. No, stop it, Maribel, you've only just met her! "... this is basically the kind of world we were born into," I continued, "and for most practical purposes, we behave as though this all one hundred percent true." I sipped my tea. Not bad.

"Well, I'd argue that as it stands, the supernatural is just another 'unexplained phenomenon'," said Renko. "Once we understand it, it'll just be another part of scientific knowledge, like Newtonian physics, or how muscles work."

"True, but hold that thought," I said. "Let us define this world-without-magic as the world of 'rationality.' It is separate from the world of 'fantasy', which is the kind of world with gods, magic ..."

"... and ordinary university students with supernatural powers in our eyes," said Renko.

"Correct," I said. "So, then, Renko ...the boundary I am seeing in your eyes, and the boundary which I always see in my otherworldly dreams, is the boundary between 'fantasy' and 'reality.'"

"I see," said Renko. " _Interesting._ And we live our whole lives in this world of 'rationality,' _except_ when we see the things that we see with our eyes. And even then ..." She sipped her tea thoughtfully. "... the entire rest of our bodies are still in the world of 'rationality'." She chuckled. "We're not even treating this whole thing as anything more than a fun thing to do in an afternoon between classes, are we, Merry?"

"Guess not," I said. "But what can you do?"

Renko shrugged. "We could do some actual investigations," she said. "But you're right. I mean, I can't see anything changing either? Unless we do something that revolutionizes the whole world ..."

I laughed. "I wouldn't even _want_ that kind of pressure or responsibility!"

"Me neither," said Renko. "Besides, we should start small no matter what we do. Got any interesting dreams to show me?"

"Oh! Now that you mention it, yes," I said. "Only half of one, though. I had this whole sort of insight this morning when I had an otherworld dream about your great-aunt Sumireko and a shrine maiden."

"Oh, really?" she said. "Were they fighting?"

"No, they were just talking about getting up too early," I said. "I think. That's the only thing I can remember, because something inside the dream startled me awake, and I looked at the clock on my phone and saw it was a little before 6 AM."

Renko nodded. "Now I _really_ want to see your whole dream diary."

"It's got more breadth than depth, though," I said. "You'll definitely want to have me there in order to answer questions."

"That can be arranged," said Renko. "Wonder why you can never remember anything if you wake up suddenly. Shouldn't it be easier to remember, since you're waking up right away instead of slipping back into unconsciousness?"

"It's because I'm not waking up properly," I said. "That's what my gut's telling me, I took your advice about that."

"Got it," said Renko. She drummed her fingers on the table. "I'm kind of interested in poking at that concept," she said after a moment. "Um, hmm ... Are you familiar with the concept of _meisekiyume_?"

"Meiseki ...?" I hesitated.

"When you become aware that you're dreaming, and you can take control of it," said Renko.

"Oh! Yes, lucid dreams!" I said. "Sorry, I've only ever heard the phrase in English before. Yes, I can actually do it reliably, if I have a day or so to prepare, or if I realize I'm dreaming."

"Oh, _that's_ cool," she said.

"Yeah," I said. "I actually tried to do it in one of my otherworld dreams once — I fell asleep at my desk, and someone in the dream complimented my clothes, and I realized I was wearing the same outfit I had when I was awake. I tried to lucid-dream then, but I was too surprised to stay asleep."

Renko tilted her head curiously. "Are you normally wearing the same thing in the dream-world and the waking world?"

"I almost never notice," I said. "But I pretty much always make sure I'm wearing a nightgown at minimum."

She snorted. "Oh, jeez, that's probably a good idea," she said. She sipped her tea, pondering this for a moment, and then a thought seemed to strike her. "One more question: can you dream about _otherworlds_ deliberately?"

"I _think_ so," I said. My instincts seemed to be a bit more confident. "Yeah, I probably can."

Renko broke into a grin. I grinned back as I realized where this was going.

"Okay. It looks like we've come up with something testable," said Renko. "The null hypothesis, the hypothesis that we're assuming is true unless the evidence suggests otherwise, is that this is a perfectly normal, mundane universe."

"All right," I said. "How do we test against that?"

"Well, we don't have to go overboard for our first attempt," she said. "I _think_ a good starting alternative hypothesis to test _for_ is that if you have a lucid dream of an otherworld, you'll become fully aware of that otherworld, and be able to explore it in more detail than you do when you're not lucid."

"I've never really explored before in the otherworld-dreams," I said. "Wandered, yes, but ..."

"Well, there you go, then!" said Renko. "I think we can come up with —" There was a buzzing from her purse. "Whoops, hang on ..." She fished out her phone. "Hello? ... No, Rikako, you in fact did _not_ tell me the meeting was being moved to 'five minutes ago'. What? No, that was supposed to be Monday, wasn't it?" A pained expression crossed her face. "Okay, look, I'm at the Kanji Cafe, tell Yu— okay, okay, just tell her I'll be over there in about five minutes!"

I sipped my tea and did my best to smile neutrally, because I knew it wouldn't be very polite to burst out laughing.

"Okay, _fine!_ " she said. "BYE RIKAKO!" She hung up and sighed. "I'm sorry about this, Miss Han ..."

"Don't worry about it, Renko," I said. "I'll see you later, then."

"Right," she said, and hurriedly swiped her student debit card on the touchscreen menu. "Bye, Merry!" She bolted for the exit.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** For the record, I was sort of imagining the the Kanji Cafe as the place they went to in the fan-anime "Hifuu Club Activity Record ~ The Sealed Esoteric History." It doesn't correspond to any actual real-world business, not because I couldn't find anything on Google Maps within walking distance of Kyoto University that looked like someplace Renko and Merry might go, but because for all I know, a given business might close down within the next 48 years. (Yes, that is the specific point of realism I'm worried about here.)


	4. Chapter 3: The Experiment

**Content warnings for this chapter:** One instance of stronger cussing.

* * *

 **Chapter 3: The Experiment**

We decided to hold the experiment that Saturday night. I spent the day getting ready for a lucid dream — near-constant reality checks, making sure I was well-rested, and so on; I couldn't make any real preparations for an otherworldly dream, however, until it was time to go to sleep.

I waited in my apartment, a "single-room mansion" that was only slightly larger than a dorm room. I got impatient as 9 PM drew near; when it passed, I must have checked my watch every thirty seconds until there was a knock at my door a little before 9:05.

"Hello, Renko," I said as I led her in. "You're almost five minutes late."

"Sorry, sorry!" she said. "Uh. I'm just really bad at managing my time, in case that wasn't obvious ..." She'd added a black capelet to the outfit she'd had before, and there was a laptop bag slung over her shoulder.

"So, you're a university student, in other words," I said, grinning.

Renko grinned back. "Yeah, basically! So, got everything you think you'll need?"

"Yep," I said. I walked over to my desk, where my supplies were arrayed. "Purse-sized notebook, pen, flashlight, spare phone, and distinctive outfit." I was wearing a sky-blue blouse and a deep purple skirt, and of course my mob cap.

"Spare phone?" said Renko.

I grinned wryly. "Well, I didn't want to risk my regular phone getting damaged," I said. "Y'know, in the dream."

Renko chuckled and shrugged. "It's your money."

"It was just 1500 yen, I could've bought a fistful of packs of gum for that." I picked up the phone, which belonged to a brand called "Absolutely" in English. It came preloaded with a bunch of non-removable Absolutely-brand apps which seemed to exist for the sole purpose of advertising the Absolutely-brand phone services.

"Well, all right," said Renko.

I shrugged. "I don't even know what I was thinking," I said. "It just seemed like the kind of thing where it was a risk that was too easy _not_ to take." I set everything to "mute" so I wouldn't annoy the neighbors if it decided to scream at me, and slipped it back into my purse. I glanced at my watch. 9:06 PM, just like it said on the phone; signs and watches tended to be inconsistent within dreams. "I mean, not that there's any chance it _would_ affect anything."

"Well, that's no reason not to put it in the experiment," said Renko. "One hundred percent certainty is all the more reason to test something, isn't it?"

"True enough," I said, trying to brush aside the gut feeling that it _wasn't_ one hundred percent certain, which made _no sense whatsoever_. I glanced at my watch again; still 9:06.

Renko grinned. "Nervous?"

"You bet," I said. I switched the flashlight on for a second just to test that it still worked, then deposited it back in my purse. "I mean, this is exciting, y'know? I'd never really thought of systematically experimenting with my ability before."

"I guess I caught you at the right time," said Renko. "I'll send you the notes from my own experiments at some point."

"We can go over them when I show you my dream diary," I said.

"Works for me," she said. "So, just so we're on the same page ... the first hypothesis we're testing is that when you lucid dream, you'll be able to explore these other worlds, see what distinguishes them from normal dreams besides your boundary-power."

"Right," I said.

"The second hypothesis is that your clothes, and the items you're carrying, will carry over to the dream," she continued.

"Right," I said. I grinned. "And the third hypothesis is that any changes in the dream won't carry over to the real world."

"Well, of course!" she said.

I unrolled my futon mattress. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get to sleep like this," I said. "Especially fully dressed and with my shoes on. At least I'll be comfortable in my nice clean sheets ..." I grabbed my purse where it was sitting on my desk.

"Well, if this doesn't work out, we can probably just try again some other time," said Renko.

"I don't know if that would help, but all right," I said as I laid down. "You going to be all right staying up late?"

Renko shrugged. "This wouldn't be my first all-nighter," she said. "It'll probably be the earliest in a semester I've done it, though."

"Well, all right," I said. "G'night, Renko!"

"Goodnight, Merry."

* * *

The apartment was lit only by the glow of Renko's laptop over by the kitchen area, dim enough that I could ignore it if I closed my eyes while facing away from her.

This was going to be slightly tricky. I needed to drift off gently for the purpose of a lucid dream, while simultaneously _wielding_ my boundary-power for the purpose of an otherworldly dream. I finally got it to work when I visualized myself passing through the boundary between sleep and wakefulness, with the boundary between fantasy and rationality just on the other side.

 _In my dream, I found myself in a path in the middle of a hilly bamboo forest at night. The sky was full of stars — much more at once than I'd ever seen before, though it occurred to me in the dream that this was probably just because there was no light pollution here. The moon was full, rather than the waning crescent of the waking world, and it was warm enough to be daytime in April, not nighttime. Automatically, as I'd been doing all day, I glanced at my wristwatch, which didn't say anything in particular._

 _I could sense boundaries of space in the distance all around me, as if the forest had been disassembled and then put back together improperly. This seemed particularly odd, even in the dream. Was that even physically possible? I glanced at my wristwatch again, and realized that it looked very ... vague. Waking awareness began to stir._

 _But this time, I was expecting that awareness. I gently grasped it, and allowed myself to ease into lucidity without waking up. Immediately, I felt a sensation of hurtling through the boundary between dreams and reality, while standing perfectly still and upright ..._

... and found myself standing in the middle of the forest, wide awake.

I looked around. It looked like a perfectly ordinary path in a perfectly ordinary forest of bamboo. Apart from the boundaries of space I could still see around me in the distance, that is.

Well ... _that_ wasn't quite what I'd been expecting.

I tried my usual lucid dream tricks, just to be sure. I willed the night to turn into day; nothing happened. I tried to rise up off the ground and fly away; still nothing. There were a few boundaries over my head, anyway. I recalled a gag from a Douglas Adams book, and visualized the bamboo and hills becoming a uniform shade of pale pink; nothing continued to happen.

I flicked on the flashlight. It was tinted faintly blue, but otherwise looked normal when I shined it around. I pointed it on myself, and nearly dropped it in surprise when I discovered that I was slightly transparent and didn't cast a shadow.

That's when I realized that I _couldn't_ see the boundary between "fantasy" and "rationality." I was completely and utterly within the world of fantasy.

The words "astral-projecting in her sleep" rose unbidden into my mind.

I decided to test what would happen if I tried to speak aloud. Which is to say, I said, "Holy shit." I sounded perfectly natural.

(Renko glanced over when she thought she heard me mutter something; but no, I looked like I was definitely asleep.)

Okay, that left the obvious question: where the hell _was_ I?

I pulled out my phone, which surprisingly still worked when I unlocked it; it promptly lit up with the text " **Absolutely:** _No signal._ " I chortled.

I snapped a few photographs, then realized that _that_ didn't make a whole lot of sense either. I made a mental note to ask Renko if she'd heard any sounds from my phone in my purse, and then, to quote from the same Douglas Adams book, I made a mental note to stop making mental notes like that.

So ... what now? Well, I'd heard an ancient adage that the difference between science and screwing around was that you wrote it all down, so I sat down with my flashlight in the crook of my neck and started writing in the notebook. _"2016-04-04, 10:13 PM - Am I a human dreaming I'm a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I'm a human? It seems that the truth is that I'm in one reality, astral-projecting into some other world."_ I trailed off and stopped as I realized that these notes probably wouldn't carry over to the waking world. There was a faint, nagging feeling that _maybe they would_ , but again, that didn't make any logical sense.

Well ... whatever. I resumed writing, continuing on the back of the page and onto the next where necessary. _"I am in a bamboo forest at night, still wearing the same clothes I had in the waking world. Off in the distance, I can sense boundaries of space, but I'm not sure what they are. Strangely enough, my phone still works, including the camera. How are the photons even hitting the lens?"_ I glanced back up at the moon, and felt my skin crawl as a thought struck me. _"Also, it is much warmer than I would've expected for a night in April, plus the moon is full —"_

My pen jerked as I heard a strange keening cry off in the distance.

It didn't sound remotely human. It didn't sound like any animal cry I'd ever heard before, either. But there was just _something_ about it that made the hairs on the back of my end stand up. I just _knew_ , deep in the depths of some primal instinct, that it wouldn't be a good thing at all if I was caught by the source of that sound.

I carefully wrote, _"— and as I was writing this I heard what sounded like the cry of a youkai."_ Then I put away the notebook and switched off my flashlight, waited for my eyes to adjust to the moonlight, and carefully and quietly started walking down the path in the opposite direction from the sound.

Over the crest of a hill and around a bend, I suddenly found one of the space-boundaries directly across the path in front of me. I tried to make sense of what I was looking at; all I could figure out was that it was just sort of generally space-y. I took a mental step back, and recalled my initial impression that it was as if the forest had been improperly put back together. Hmm ...

I looked around, then sat down and pulled out my notebook again. There was just enough moonlight to write by. _"10:17 PM - I've reached one of the boundaries. It doesn't seem to be particularly dangerous"_ — insofar as that weird youkai-noise seemed _more_ dangerous — _"so I'm going to make a prediction: it is a boundary of non-Euclidean geometry, and will take me somewhere else in the forest."_

I closed my notebook, and stepped through the boundary. The boundaries in the forest all seemed to jump around, and the one I'd passed through vanished completely. I looked back the way I came; the path was now a lot shorter, twice as steep, and curved into the opposite direction from the one I'd arrived in. Off in the distance between the bamboo stalks, I could see orange flickering lights, like a campfire or something.

There was an odd warbling youkai-cry, and it seemed closer than the one before.

I looked around; there was another boundary just down the new path. I cautiously made my way towards it, hoping it wouldn't take me too close to _another_ monster, and slipped through. Once again, the forest seemed to jump around me.

Or rather, I'd jumped around the forest.

The path forked ahead of me; both directions went up different steep inclines. I sat down on one of them and resumed writing. _"10:19 PM - My guess was right. When I pass through the boundaries, it takes me someplace else. Is there even any way out? This is certainly an odd forest, but even with that in mind —"_ I paused as I reached the back of a page, and realized that I'd just about filled two whole sheets of paper. Well ... it was pocket-sized anyway. _"— it seems like it would be unusually easy to get lost in this forest. My phone's getting no signal or GPS, and I've never seen so much natural bamboo in one place before."_

I glanced up at the sky. _"The sky's so full of stars, too, and I can see the moon more clearly than I ever have before."_ I hesitated, then wrote down the thought that had been bothering me before the youkai-calls distracted me. _"This almost seems like Japan might have looked a long time ago. Did this 'dream' take me through a time-slip?"_

There. I'd written it down. I'd successfully raised the possibility.

 _"Am I in a closed timelike curve? Was Hawking's reversibility of the arrow of time actually true?"_ I stared at what I'd written for a moment, then added, _"Am I completely mixing up physics terms?"_ Then I wrote, _"I'll have to ask Renko about that when I wake up"_ and shoved it back into my purse before I started full-on babbling onto the page.

I stared at the sky, and whispered, "Magic is real."

Renko had been right. Even though we knew that our powers weren't mundane in a literal sense, we still hadn't taken them seriously. I mean, yes, I'd had a history of strange dreams, and we both had uncommonly strong spatial awareness in our own ways, but the entire rest of our bodies were in the world of the mundane; in terms of what we'd been _doing_ with our abilities, we'd been acting as though we had a shared passing interest and had both independently come up with the same secret handshake. Great-Auntie Sumireko's stories? Just tall tales for the sake of passing on a weird "legacy."

But here I was, with my disembodied spirit wandering through a forest which apparently actually existed somewhere, hearing the cries of monsters in the distance, and going over all the evidence that I'd inadvertently traveled through time.

If this had been one of my usual otherworldly dreams, I would have woken up in surprise by now. The problem was, this _was_ technically an ordinary otherworld-dream.

Oh ... and then I had a sudden insight about why I could never remember anything when I was woken up suddenly: it was because the "consciousness" that was doing the remembering had to return to my body in a hurry, and wasn't properly settling in. I had a feeling that wouldn't be a problem while I was lucid, though; my dream-self was already too "connected" with my waking-self.

In any event, Sumireko's stories were still too strange to take seriously, but the rest of it pointed to one conclusion.

"Magic is real," I whispered again.

The _real_ "rationality" was the existence of the so-called supernatural. The _real_ "fantasy" was the idea that humans had the slightest hope of understanding the universe.

I sighed, wondering how the hell I was going to convey all this to Renko. I wondered how easy it would be for me to just get back to university life; was that even possible anymore? I felt like I'd discovered fire, and then realized that I might accidentally burn down the forest.

I shook my head, and got to my feet. Well, even if a large part of the body of scientific knowledge was wrong, I could still follow the scientific _method_. Hell, I was going to be a psychologist, _my_ chosen field of study would be completely unchanged even if the discovery of magic tore physics apart. The only thing to do was just to keep on keeping on.

I heard a third youkai-cry from the distance. I spared a moment to write, _"I should keep wandering, the youkai are making this whole outing a lot less fun."_ I'd probably just wake up if one of them attacked me, but I didn't want to take an chances. I cautiously made my way up the hill to the nearest boundary.

On the other side, I found the fire I'd seen before.


	5. Chapter 4: Old Flame

**Content warnings for this chapter:** Minor injuries and blood, reference in dialogue to worse injuries and death, and playing with fire. Take a wild guess.

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Old Flame**

A little ways off the path behind me, there was a small clearing, lit by the orange glow of a campfire. I turned, cautiously made my way forward —

A fallen stalk of bamboo snapped under my feet.

A second later, a girl with long, silvery-blue hair poked her head out of the clearing. She was wearing a red and white hair-ribbon, and a black long-sleeved dress that had probably seen better days — or decades. A fireball floated through the air in front of her, and she glared at me.

"Um, hello," I said. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

"Uh-huh," she said. Her voice was low and gruff. "What the hell are you?"

I raised my hands. "I'm a human," I said. "I'm, I'm just astral-projecting."

"Oh! Got it," she said, relaxing. "Sorry about that. You're sure _acting_ like a human who got lost in these woods." She smiled, and inclined her head into the clearing. "C'mon over, the youkai know not to go where there's fire."

"That's good to hear," I said. "I've been jumping out of my skin every time I heard a noise." I hesitated, wondering if she'd be able to pronounce "Maribel". "My name's Merry Hearn."

The "campfire" turned out to be a larger fireball hovering above the floor of the clearing. The girl sat down heavily next to it, wincing. "Fujiwara no Mokou," she said. "Nice to meet you, Miss Merry."

I sat down next to her. "That's family-name last, actually," I said.

"Oh, Miss Hearn, sorry," said Mokou.

I nodded. "No worries." _Well, she pronounced_ that _part right, at least —_ I paused. Now that I could see better, Mokou's dress was covered in rips that made it look like she'd been in a fight, and I saw a couple of darker stains that might have been blood.

Mokou noticed my gaze, and grinned. "You should see the one I was fightin'," she said.

I looked away. "I'd ... rather not."

"Oh ... sorry," she said. "Bad joke. But yeah, the ... youkai are pretty bad around here. In case you hadn't figured that out," she added with a wry grin. "I heal fast, but it still hurts. Even though I won."

"All right," I said.

(At this point, Renko was finding it harder and harder to ignore my sleep-mutterings. She set her phone to record and slid it over to where I was lying, wishing we'd thought of that sooner.)

We sat in silence for a few moments. Now that I was safer and the initial shock was wearing off, I was actually starting to feel excited. Not only had I found a world of magic, I'd now _met someone from this world_. There were so many things I wanted to ask Mokou, so many things she could tell me ...

... and I had _no idea_ if it was safe to reveal that I was from a non-magical world. Visions of the neuralizer from Men In Black and the memory-charm from Harry Potter flashed through my mind.

"Um, Miss Fujiwara, if you don't mind me asking ..." I hesitated, and pointed questioningly at the fire.

"Fire's my special ability," said Mokou. "Or one of them, at least. I can just, y'know ... create fire."

"Sounds handy," I said. This seemed self-explanatory enough.

"You bet," she said. " _I'm_ the reason youkai don't come near fire around here."

I raised my eyebrows. "Um, wow."

"Can't get burned, either," she said, and stuck her hand directly into the hovering fireball. The edge of her sleeve caught fire. "Oh, whoops!" She quickly pulled back and started patting down the flames with her other hand.

I giggled, and then quickly put a hand over my mouth.

Mokou caught my eye, and let out a chuckle of her own. "... but I can only control the flames I make myself."

"Sorry, sorry ..." I said.

She gave an easy smile. "Better laughing than shaking with terror, right?"

"Fair enough, I guess," I said. "Is your healing another ability?"

There was a pause. "Sort of," said Mokou, in a pointedly-changing-the-subject tone of voice. "How'd you end up astral-projecting into the Bamboo Forest of the Lost?"

Well, fine. "It's part of _my_ special ability," I said. "I don't have any control over where I end up. This is the first time I've done it deliberately, actually, I've always done it by accident in my sleep."

"Huh." Mokou peered at me curiously. "Sounds kind of weird."

"You're telling me, Miss Fujiwara," I said.

There was a trilling youkai-cry. I looked nervously towards the source.

"Don't worry, they won't attack us here," said Mokou. "Like I said, I made sure they know not to go where there's fire."

"Right," I muttered, and turned back to the fire. "I sort of ... walked slowly away from the sounds when I heard them —"

"Smart choice," Mokou interrupted. "They'd've chased you if they heard you running."

"Oh," I said. "But anyway, then I escaped through those, uh ... the ..."

"The cracks?" said Mokou. "You can tell where they are?"

"I can see their boundaries," I said. "That's the main part of my ability."

Mokou nodded, looking impressed. " _That_ sounds handy," she said. "I mean, I got 'em memorized, but _wow_."

I smiled faintly. "Um, any idea how they got there?"

"The cracks? Uh ... hmm." She looked at the fire thoughtfully. "I heard a legend once. This place used to be off in Inaba, but there was a big tsunami, and it ... somehow ended up in Gensokyo."

"In pieces," I said.

"Yeah, pretty much," she said. "Don't ask me how it actually works, magic is weird like that."

"No argument here." So ... magic wasn't actually "normal" to people, even in the magical worlds. Or at least in this one. For that matter, the name "Gensokyo" sounded strangely familiar. Oh, right, it was in ... the dream with Sumireko. I couldn't remember anything else, except that it was in the context of "Gensokyo's youkai" ...

Mokou looked over at me. "You gonna need help getting back to your body?" she asked. "I can take you out of the woods, at least."

"I've never needed it before," I said. "I always just sort of ... woke back up."

"All right," she said with a shrug. "I ask because even the Yama has trouble with this place."

"The judge of the dead?" I said, and just _barely_ stopped myself from saying "mythological" or "in Hindu/Buddhism" ...

She nodded. "The one in Gensokyo at least," she said. "She comes around every couple decades, talking people's ears off because she doesn't like sending 'em to hell ..."

"That's better than the opposite," I murmured. "Um ... hm, now I'm actually not sure if I'll need help ..."

"Go with your gut," said Mokou. "That's how special abilities always seem to work. Your gut's always right, even if common sense says it's wrong." She hesitated, then added, "But if common sense says it's dangerous, just ... trust your judgment."

I thought about this. "My gut isn't saying anything one way or another," I said finally, "and my common sense is saying that if even the Yama has trouble with this place, I should probably get help."

Mokou grinned. "All righty then," she said. "Wanna head out now?"

"Sure," I said.

She nodded, and pushed herself gingerly to her feet. "You in the village?"

"No, I'm ... elsewhere," I said. If I'd been sent to the past ... did Kyoto actually exist yet? I got up and gave my dress a quick brush-off.

"All right," said Mokou. "... Did you just brush dirt off yourself? Even though you're astral-projecting?"

I stared down at myself, and laughed. "I really haven't figured this out yet." There it was again, that faint nagging feeling that there was somehow a connection with my waking-world!

"Jeez," said Mokou. "Well, let's go." She gestured, and the fireball shrank down to a smaller size and began floating over her shoulder. She rose several meters off the ground with no apparent means of support. "Can you fly?"

I managed not to react with astonishment. "No, sorry."

"Oh, whoops." She sank back to the ground. "No worries, most people can't."

"Why do people come here in the first place?" I said.

"It's got the best bamboo in Gensokyo, and it's close enough to the Human Village that you can walk here," said Mokou. "Trouble is, you'll run into a crack within a few jō on basically every path."

"Got it," I said.

I thought furiously as we walked. Setting aside geographic considerations (I knew "jō" was a unit of one of Japan's pre-metric system of measurement, and one jō was equal to 3.03 meters), I was trying to figure out the source of that nagging feeling that I could bring things out of the dream. Where was it coming from?

My instincts, obviously. Which is to say, my gut. And I'd been shutting it down because of my common sense. And according to Fujiwara no Mokou, this meant ...

Well, among other things, it meant that if a youkai attacked me, I probably _wouldn't_ "just wake up," especially if this forest was interfering with my abilities. I moved in closer to Mokou.

She stopped as we reached the crest of a smaller hill. "Okay, there's a crack right in front of us."

Sure enough, there was a boundary running across the path. "Yeah, I can see it."

She started leading me down a side-path. "Most of them have ways around 'em," she said. "But I can get you right to the edge of the woods if we go through a couple."

"Sure, I don't object to just _interacting_ them if they come in handy." I saw the edge of the crack through the bamboo. It was like a window in midair, or a badly-edited video. "Wow, that looks weird."

"You get used to it," said Mokou.

We continued in silence. Okay ... if I _could_ transfer things in and out of the dream, how could I test that? Well, easily: all I needed to do was turn my phone's sound on, and I'd be able to catch Renko's attention. Maybe take a page out of my notebook, and put it so it was sticking out of my purse ... I imagined Renko responding with a selfie, frowning at the camera and pointing to the text "WTF!?" in big letters on her laptop's screen.

I decided to wait until I parted ways with Mokou; a USD$15 smartphone was both anachronistic and mundane, and I still wasn't sure how well she'd react to either. For now, I took out my notebook and started an entirely new page. _"10:29 PM - The forest is named the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, in a region called Gensokyo. The boundaries of non-Euclidean geometry are called 'cracks', and according to local legend, they were caused by a tsunami that brought it to its present location from Inaba. This was explained to me by a guide named —"_ "How do you write your name?"

Mokou looked at me uneasily. "Hey, uh, can I ask you not to tell anyone about me?" she said. "I'm kind of ... I just help people out of the woods, I don't want to be, y'know, a public persona."

"Oh, that's fine," I said. "My friend Renko is guarding my body, and she'll probably have to hear about you, but I promise you it won't get anywhere else." She still looked hesitant, and I added, "This notebook's just going to be temporary, anyway."

"Well ... all right," she said. She pointed up into the air, and the kanji for _Fujiwara no Mokou_ appeared above her head in flaming letters.

"Wow," I said as I jotted it down. "'Note: Do not mention her in any publicly-available texts,'" I said aloud as I wrote. I added a brief description of her fire-powers.

She grinned, and dismissed the text as she turned back to the path. "Okay, we're going to go through this next crack, and then immediately turn around," she said. "We're just about at the point where ..." She suddenly glanced up at the moon. "Uh-oh."

I followed her gaze, just in time to see a silvery point of light shoot down from the moon into the forest. There was a crashing, splintering sound off in the distance. A chorus of several different youkai-cries rose up in all directions.

"Crap," said Mokou. She seemed surprisingly tense.

"What was that?" I said.

"Emissaries from the Capital of the Moon," she said, shooting me a rueful grin. "They're the second-least dangerous and second-most annoying folks you'll meet in this forest."

"Who's in first place?" I said.

"You and other humans who get lost are the least-dangerous and least-annoying," she said. "Uh ... crap, hold on, I can handle this."

"What do we do?" I said.

Mokou gritted her teeth for a moment. "We just keep moving," she said finally. "They'll probably stumble into a few cracks and get lost. I know a few other ways to avoid them." Her fireball disappeared. "I'll, I'll bring back the fire if we run into any youkai."

"Okay," I said. "You doing all right?"

She laughed hollowly. "I should be asking _you_ that."

"You just suddenly looked like you feel like crap," I said.

Mokou shook her head. "Let's just _go_ , Miss Hearn," she muttered.

I followed her through the next crack, and we immediately turned around and started moving back down the new path. I decided it would be better not to talk, in case any youkai got the wrong idea from the lack of immediately-obvious fire.

"Next part's gonna be tricky," said Mokou irritably. "In about a dozen jō, there's another crack that'll take almost right to the edge of the woods. But there's at least three different other cracks that take you to the same spot. One of them comes out _behind_ where we'll appear, and ... the source is _kind of_ in the general vicinity of where that emissary landed."

"Is there a better way?" I said.

She shook her head. "Probably not, but they ... probably won't be dangerous. I think ... damn it ..."

"Miss Fujiwara, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Crap, I'm usually better at keeping it together when I'm helping somebody out of the woods," she muttered. "Damn it, damn it ... just gimme a sec, I'll just ... let's just head out." She started walking again.

I hesitated. I wasn't going to be a licensed therapist, but that didn't mean that my knowledge was useless. "Mokou ... are you all right?"

"Of course not!" she snapped. "I haven't been remotely 'all right' since Keiun 2!" Then she suddenly froze, and turned back to face me with a mixture of embarrassment and terror on her face.

I looked back at her blankly for a moment. Then it clicked. "Oh ... Keiun." That was an era of _old_ Japan. And the second year of the Keiun era was ... I couldn't remember.

"Yeah," said Mokou softly. Her shoulders sagged. "I used ... the Hourai Elixir, it's called, it's the same one used by Princess Kaguya."

Princess Kaguya was the central character of an old folk tale, known to every child in Japan; I'd seen a few different versions, but they all had the princess returning to her home in the Capital of the Moon after using an elixir of immortality. The idea that it had actually _happened_ was ... a slight surprise, but not at all shocking after everything else that had happened to me tonight. Anyway, none of that was actually relevant right now.

"I look eighteen," Mokou continued, "but I've been eighteen for over twelve and a half centuries. I can't die, and I'm basically the same as I was back then." She swallowed. "I-I'm still human, though!" she added defensively. "I'm definitely not a youkai!"

"It's all right, Mokou," I said. "It's obvious to _me_ that you're human, and you've been nothing but helpful since we met." I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You can just help me out of the forest, and then —"

"Wait wait wait," she said, staring at my hand. "Are you ... _touching_ me? While astral-projecting?"

I blinked, and poked at her shoulder. It felt perfectly solid to me. "Uh ... apparently."

Mokou laughed helplessly, and shook her head. "Oh gods ..."

"I mean, I _did_ make a noise when I stepped on that stick before," I said. "And the ground's supporting me well enough."

"Yeah ..." She hesitated, then said, "You really don't have a problem with ... with me?"

"Of course not," I said reassuringly.

She smiled faintly. "Well ... thanks," she said.

As we resumed our trek through the woods, I wished I could have said more, but quite frankly, I felt like I was out of my league. Would _any_ licensed therapist be up to the task of dealing with a 1250-year-old immortal with depression?

Well ... maybe, I decided. She still seemed psychologically human, to the extent that I wouldn't have actually realized that she was immortal if she hadn't said anything.

Unfortunately, though, whatever happened, it wouldn't be me.


	6. Chapter 5: Another Life Form

**Content warnings for this chapter:** There's a bit more fire, and there's also a depiction of a psychic attack that causes terror and hallucinations.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Another Life Form**

We made it to the next crack without incident. However, as soon as we passed through, a girl's voice behind us called out, "Oh, excuse me!"

Mokou whirled around. "Crap!"

Behind us, a humanoid shape was floating a dozen meters above the ground. It had what looked like long ears or antennae, and glowing red eyes.

Our eyes met. There was a crashing sensation, and I screamed. _Those EYES ..._

(Renko jerked awake as I made a strange noise, then silently cursed herself as she realized she'd dozed off.)

 _It wasn't like the thrill of fear that I got from the sound of the youkai cries. This was orders of magnitude worse. It was like something had reached inside my brain and turned my fight-or-flight response up to eleven._

 _"Ow!" exclaimed Mokou's voice. "What's with those_ eyes _...?"_

 _I turned to run, and immediately stumbled and fell — the world swam around me, and there were dark shadows at the edge of my vision no matter where I looked — a_ whoosh _of flames from Mokou's direction, and the world was bathed in an orange glow —_

 _"Oh, whoops, sorry!" said the monster-girl's voice. "Here, let me undo it!" There was a hissing roar, and she said, "Wait, hang on!"_

 _I fumbled with my purse, looking for something to throw — tore a page out of my notebook and threw it back at the monster — threw the notebook — threw the purse — picked up a rock off the ground and threw it — grabbed at a bamboo stalk — suddenly, the red eyes seemed to swim back into my vision — I inhaled to let out another scream —_

There was another crashing sensation. The world returned to normal, and I collapsed onto my side. I lay there panting for several seconds, then looked back.

(Renko turned on the lights as she realized I sounded like I was hyperventilating. The expression on my face in my sleep did _not_ look pleasant.)

Mokou was hovering a few meters above the ground with great big wings of flame, and she was also surrounded by a strange red-and-blue aura. In the light of her fire, I could see that the monster-girl had long purple hair, a pair of rumpled-looking rabbit ears, and was dressed in a black jacket and a pale red skirt which ... looked like some sort of school uniform. A vague memory of another dream poked at me. I was _distracted_ at that moment, though.

"I-is that a _spell card_!?" exclaimed the monster-girl.

Mokou seemed to glare at her for another moment, then descended. Her aura vanished. "You're lucky I got bigger fish to fry, moon-rabbit," she growled.

"S-sorry," stammered the rabbit. "I'm ... I can't always control my lunatic eyes ..." She landed, and looked nervously towards me. "Um, miss phantom, are you all right?"

"I ... probably," I said. My voice sounded strange. I'd never even _heard_ myself sound this ragged or unsteady before.

"She's a human, she's just astral-projecting," said Mokou irritably.

"Oh," the rabbit said sheepishly.

Mokou's wings turned into a fireball, and she walked over to me, picking up the notebook and purse as she went. "You okay?"

"I-I think so," I said.

"It's all right," said Mokou softly. "No, don't try to stand up yet. You looked like you just completely panicked." She handed me my things. "Here you go ..."

"Oh, thanks," I said. The purse and notebook looked solid and opaque when Mokou held them, but they changed to being transparent as soon as she let go of them. I didn't have any energy to think about that at the moment, though. I grabbed a nearby bamboo stalk to steady myself, and looked over at the rabbit-girl.

She bowed her head. "I-I'm terribly sorry about all this!" she said. "Just give it a few minutes, the remaining effects should wear off."

Mokou grumbled under her breath, and went back to pick up the page I'd torn out. "What're you doing on Earth to begin with?"

The rabbit looked even _more_ guilty. "I'm a deserter from the Lunar Rabbit Army," she said finally. "My name is Reisen. There was an invasion from Earth nine days ago."

"What do you mean, an invasion?" I said. The bamboo stalk promptly broke under my weight. "Ah!"

Mokou spared me a glance. "Careful."

(Renko made a decision. She still couldn't decipher my sleep-mutterings, but my tone and expression were clear enough, and she decided that enough was enough.)

Reisen shrugged. "That's what they told me," she said uneasily. "These machines from Earth descended from the sky, and —"

I felt a dull pinch on my cheek. I blinked. I was back in my apartment with all the lights on. Renko was sitting next to me, looking frantic. "Merry, are you okay?" she said urgently.

I took a few breaths. "Yeah," I said. "A youkai rabbit from the moon just ... accidentally hit me with a psychic attack. She undid it, though. That was kind of bad timing, actually."

"Sorry, you looked like you were having a nightmare, so I pinched your cheek," said Renko. "You remember all of it?"

"Yeah," I said. "Can't fault you for being worried, though. Thanks." I swallowed. "Ugh ... need water ..." I pushed back my bedsheets.

I was covered in dirt and detritus from the forest floor, and my skirt was torn. A broken-off bamboo stalk was sitting right next to where my hand had been.

We both stared at it for what seemed like a solid minute. My heartbeat thumped in my ears.

"M ... Merry," Renko croaked.

"How about I get water for both of us," I said.

We each drank an entire glasses of water before Renko stopped procrastinating and opened the notebook. I sent the photographs to my TV via bluetooth, and we sat on the floor around it.

"I can't see the time and location in photographs, sorry," she said. "Even with the resolutions TVs have these days."

"Oh," I said.

"Also, I think a page of your notes got torn out," she said, frowning.

"It did ...?" I looked over her shoulder. "Oh. I sort of ... I threw it at the youkai-rabbit while I was panicking." I looked between the two visible pages. "On the page I dropped, I just said I thought I'd gone back in time."

Renko looked up at me. "Yeah, that would explain it," she said, sounding like she _really_ didn't want that to be the explanation. "What happened after the last part of the notes?"

"Oh ... Miss Fujiwara accidentally said she was immortal," I said, talking on auto-pilot. "Since Keiun 2, and that it was twelve and a half centuries ago."

"That's CE 705," said Renko. "That's more than _thirteen_ and a half centuries ago."

"Yeah," I said. "And then we met the rabbit, she said she was a deserter from the Capital of the Moon after an invasion from the Earth ..." I just ran out of energy to talk for a moment.

Renko stared at the TV screen in silence for a moment. "This is all real, isn't it?" she said. "You really _did_ astral-project into another world, and meet an immortal woman with fire-powers and a lunar rabbit." She shook her head. "This must be what Sumireko found. Something that just ... blew everything she thought she knew out of the water. She must've —"

"Renko, should we be doing this at all?" I said suddenly.

Renko looked at me. "What?"

"What do you _mean_ , what?" I blurted out. The events of this evening started to come crashing down. All the fear, all the dangers, everything felt like it had been dammed up, and now that I was safe, I didn't have a reason to control myself. "We're literally just a couple of university students fooling around! This is, that's, it's the kind of story that always ends with, with, 'and one of them w-went mad and the other was never heard from again.'" I was babbling, but I didn't have the slightest urge to stop. "For all I know, _all_ youkai do that sort of psychic attack, and even if they don't, they might still be able to reach me, a-and if we keep doing this, _I'm_ going to be the one who's ... who ..."

Renko scooted over and pulled me into her arms. "It's okay, Merry," she said softly.

I just burst into tears, and clung to Renko as though my life depended on it. I didn't bother to hold back at all.

"It's all right," she said, gently holding me close against her. "We can just leave this alone from now on. You don't ever have to go back into the dream-world again."

I lay there in her arms for several minutes, sobbing and trembling. It all just came pouring out. I didn't see _why_ I should stop, let alone how. It was a long time before I my tears began to ebb, and longer still before I started feeling like I was remotely able to speak.

Finally, I gently pulled away from Renko, sniffling and rubbing my eyes. I took a deep breath, looked back up to her, and said, "Yeah I do."

"Huh?" This was obviously the last thing Renko expected me to say.

I grinned weakly. "I cannot _believe_ we have access to literal, actual worlds of _magic_ ," I said, "and that we're seriously considering just _not_ doing anything with them."

"Um, if you're sure," said Renko. "I mean, you _did_ kind of raise an important point there?"

"There's probably things we can do to protect ourselves," I said. "Even if it's just like you said at the cafe, we can still ..." I stopped. "Her sleeping habits."

"Whose?" said Renko. "Wait, you mean ... Sumireko?" Her eyes widened. "Are you saying ..."

"I just remembered what woke me up in the dream the other day," I said. "She, she said I was astral-projecting in my sleep, and mentioned ... something about when she was fifteen, and I realized she must've slept all the time because ... Oh, she even looked like she was 65 years old!"

Renko stared at the bamboo shoot, which was still sitting exactly where I'd left it on the futon. "And that fish disappeared," she said slowly, "because she took it _into_ the dream-world, the same way you took that piece of bamboo _out_."

"Oh, wow, I didn't even think of that!" I said. "But ... yeah, she looked fine, even though she'd been doing it for, what, 50 years? And she's been _living_ there for ..."

"... almost thirty," Renko finished. "I don't know, though, Merry. Her psychic powers might have given her an advantage in defending against youkai? Or maybe something's changed since the 1960s. 1960s ..."

"Well, if it's gotten safer, then that kind of ..." I began.

"No, hang on," said Renko, hurrying over to her laptop. "Did that moon rabbit say when the 'invasion' was?"

"Um ... nine days earlier?" I said.

"And it was a full moon," she said, typing furiously.

"Right," I said.

Renko turned her laptop to face me. A browser window was open to a calendar of the phases of the moon for July, 1969. The 29th was a full moon.

The 20th wasn't labeled on the lunar calendar as anything other than "Waxing crescent/visibility 30%", but I still new _that_ date by heart. _Everyone_ knew about the Apollo 11 moon landing.

I just started laughing. There were still tears in my eyes, and I probably needed to blow my nose, but I didn't even care anymore. "See, this is my point," I said. "We _can't_ leave well enough alone. We're both scientists, even if it's in different fields. We _have_ to go through with this, don't we?"

Renko shook her head and let out a theatrical sigh. "This is completely nuts, and I can't believe I'm agreeing with you," she said, grinning. "Well. One thing's for sure, Merry: the new Secret Sealing Club's activities are going to be a _lot_ weirder than either of us expected."

"You can say that again," I said, grinning back.

"And I bet _I'm_ going to be the one who goes mad, and _you_ disappear," she said.

I laughed again, and bopped her over the head with my pillow. "Not funny!"

* * *

96 years earlier ...

Mokou went over to pick up the scrap of paper Merry had thrown, and incidentally so that she wouldn't have as far to throw a fireball if the moon-rabbit tried anything funny. "What're you doing on Earth to begin with?" she said, trying to keep the rabbit's attention on herself.

The rabbit looked even _more_ guilty. "I'm a deserter from the Lunar Rabbit Army," she said finally. "My name is Reisen. There was ... there was an invasion from Earth nine days ago."

"What do you mean, an invasion?" said Merry. The bamboo stalk promptly broke under her weight. "Ah!"

"Careful," said Mokou, then turned her attention back to Reisen.

Reisen shrugged. "That's what they told me," she said uneasily. "These machines from Earth descended from the sky, and two men came out and — oh!" She looked past Mokou at Merry.

... who wasn't there anymore. Mokou glared back at Reisen, inwardly cursing herself for taking her eyes off her. As if she didn't have enough reasons to curse herself already. "What happened!?"

"I-I don't know!" stammered Reisen. "I thought I saw this red mark on her cheek, and then she just disappeared!"

"Oh," said Mokou. She looked at the spot where Merry had been just a moment ago. "Well ... she _did_ say she had someone watching her body," she said finally. "That craziness you gave her must've shown on her face." She still wanted to beat herself up over the fact that something _could_ have happened, but ...

"I'm sorry," the rabbit said softly. "I'm ... well, you're lucky it didn't affect _you_ as much ... When you used that Spell Card, I thought I was going to get burned to a crisp!"

Mokou shrugged. "I guess she's just more spiritually sensitive than me." She peered at Reisen. "So, uh ... deserter, huh?"

"Um, well, yes," said Reisen. She looked like she wasn't sure she should have even revealed _that_ much.

Which was typical of lunar rabbits in Mokou's experience, but Reisen was a lot more jumpy than usual. Well, even considering that she'd just accidentally attacked someone. Anyway, Mokou decided that she could at least trust her with the truth.

"Or maybe it's because the Hourai Elixir stops me from going too nuts," she said casually.

The rabbit's eyes widened. "You _what?_ " she exclaimed. "Who _are_ you!?"

"My name is Fujiwara no Mokou," said Mokou. "You came here looking for Princess Kaguya's mansion, didn'cha? I can take you right to it, it's not far from here ..."

⇐ **x2 Be Continued Combo⇒**


	7. Epilogue: Hifuu Club Report Files

**Epilogue: Secret Sealing Club Report Files**

* * *

 **Club Member Profile: Usami Renko (宇佐見 蓮子** **) - The Human GPS**

 **Species:** Human. ... What? Well, we might as well put that down for ourselves, Merry, it's going to become relevant sooner or later.

 **Age:** 22 (b. 2042-09-29)

 **Ability:** I can see the current time and date in Japan Standard Time, and my current geographic coordinates, by looking at the stars. Doesn't work on photographs or screens (or photographs on screens).

 **Profile:** Let's see ... I'm the president of the Secret Sealing Club, of course ... um, my family lives in Tokyo, but I've kept in touch long-distance. I've been interested in both science and the occult since I was nine years old; I didn't think it was contradictory at the time, and, well, given the strength of evidence, I don't think it's all that contradictory now, either.

 _Author notes: One of the protagonists of the official Touhou music CDs. Mostly canon._

* * *

 **Club Member Profile: Maribel Hearn - The Girl with the Uncanny Eyes**

 **Species:** ... Human, heh.

 **Age:** 24 (b. 2041-03-23)

 **Ability:** I can see conceptual boundaries, like the boundary between two hallways, or the boundary of a college campus; these boundaries appear to be a slight "edge" in space. I can astral-project into worlds of "fantasy" in my sleep, which is part of my boundary-sight, I'm not sure how.

 **Profile:** I was raised in northeast Massachusets, and I've always had an interest in the human mind and its capabilities. I've been speaking Japanese since my early teens. I'm actually a distant relative of Lafcadio Hearn, a nineteenth-century English author who wrote a lot about Japan and became a citizen under the name Koizumi Yakumo (小泉 八雲). I've always had my ability, but ... well, let's just say I learned to keep quiet about it, and eventually stopped taking it seriously.

 _Author notes: The other protagonist of the official Touhou music CDs. Diverges from canon; I confess that I_ really _couldn't write Merry just straight up not realizing her "dream-worlds" were real on some level, especially in the first person._

Club Member Profile: Usami Sumireko (宇佐見 菫子) - The Mysterious Founder of the Secret Sealing Club

 **Species:** Human, as far as Merry could tell from a half-remembered dream.

 **Age:** 65 (b.2000-04-10, previously thought to have died 2036-11-29 at age 36)

 **Ability:** Uncertain. Supposedly had psychic powers. She could astral project in her sleep, just like Merry.

 **Profile:** My great-aunt. She lived in Kyoto her whole life, and started the Secret Sealing Club in 2015, in her first year of high school. However, she was always the only member. There were all sorts of stories which sounded weird for the sake of being weird, and which I never took seriously until I saw that piece of bamboo sitting on Merry's mattress.

 _Author notes: The final boss of Urban Legend in Limbo. Details in this story are unclear._

* * *

 **Unusual Location File: Bamboo Forest of the Lost**

 **Type:** A forest of bamboo (where people get lost).

 **Area:** A region called Gensokyo, into which I astral-projected; exact location is unknown.

 **Time of encounter:** 2065-04-04 in the waking world, 1969-07-29 within my dream, for the entirety of my dream between 10:18 PM and 10:49 PM.

 **Profile:** According to local legend, this area used to be in the former Inaba Province (modern-day Tottori Prefecture), but was washed into Gensokyo by a tsunami. It is full of "cracks", which produce a non-Euclidean geometry: if you pass through a crack, you'll find yourself on a path in another part of the forest. Avoiding these cracks requires either an ability which allows you to see them directly, or foreknowledge of their locations; however, it is also possible to exploit them if you know where a given crack leads.

* * *

 **Youkai and Unusual Humans: Fujiwara no Mokou (藤原 妹紅** **) - The Guide of the Bamboo Forest**

 **NOTE:** _For internal Secret Sealing Club use only! Do not publish!_

 **Species:** Immortal human.

 **Age:** Eighteen in CE 705, which would make her 1282 years old in 1969. If she's still alive today, that puts her at 1378.

 **Time and place of encounter:** 2065-04-04 in the waking world, 1969-07-29 in my dream, at approximately 10:25 PM, in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

 **Unusual attributes:** Fire-magic and immunity to getting burned: she could create magical flames from nothing, and control and shape them with a kind of psychokinesis; however, if they ignited anything else, she was unable to control them. Her immortality, which appears to allow her to regenerate from any injury. Flight, with or without flaming wings.

 **Profile:** A guide and youkai-hunter living in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, she claims to be responsible for the fact that youkai do not approach fire in that area. When I found her, she was recovering from injuries she received in what she claimed was a fight with youkai, but due to a few specific turns of phrase she used, I have reason to think she was actually fighting another person. She was prone to bouts of depression, though I wouldn't want to make a diagnosis based on a single conversation like that; she had a minor breakdown immediately after the arrival in the forest of Reisen (see other file).

She stated that the source of her immortality was the "Hourai Elixir", the same one used by Princess Kaguya in that old story. Neither of us is sure what to make of _that_ ; it wasn't clear if Mokou had actually met her, but my gut says that even if she didn't, she was implying that she had sufficient reason to think that she actually did exist somewhere. — We can't put this in another file, Renko, we literally only know about it because of Miss Mokou ...

 _Author notes: The extra stage boss of Imperishable Night. Details in this story are unclear._

* * *

 **Youkai and Unusual Humans: "Reisen" (レイセン** **?) - Deserter of the Moon**

 **Species:** Youkai - lunar rabbit.

 **Age:** Unknown. Merry described her as a "girl", and didn't get a good look at her.

 **Time and place of encounter:** 2065-04-04 in the waking world, 1969-07-29 within Merry's dream, at approximately 10:45 PM, in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

 **Unusual attributes:** She looked like a human with a pair of rabbit ears; Merry didn't see whether she also had human-like ears. She had glowing red eyes, referred to as "lunatic eyes", which have the ability to induce symptoms including hallucinations, physical instability, and overwhelming fear; she can also reverse these effects, even if you aren't looking at her eyes. She could also fly without any apparent visible means.

 **Profile:** Apparently, there is a Capital of the Moon (c.f. the tale of Princess Kaguya?) with its own army, including rabbits such as Reisen herself. She deserted this army following the moon landing of 20 July 1969, which the people of the Moon apparently interpreted as an "invasion." I woke up Merry before she could find anything else out, however.

 _Author notes: The stage 5 boss of Imperishable Night. Details in this story are unclear._

* * *

 **Concluding remarks**

Merry and I both agree that this whole investigation was poorly-conceived and poorly-implemented. Setting aside the fact that we only got what felt like a tenth of the story, Merry was in serious danger in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. If she hadn't instinctively realized that running would make too much noise, [if she hadn't found Miss Fujiwara (NOTE: Delete from non-Secret Sealing Club published materials),] or if she'd encountered a youkai more dangerous than Miss Reisen, she might have been killed or worse, and I wouldn't even have known why.

Now that we know what to expect, however, I believe we can take steps to ensure she's not placed in similar danger again. If nothing else, the traditional method of pinching her cheek served to wake her up instantly, even with the non-Euclidean geometry of the Bamboo Forest. In fact, we might even be able to communicate directly, if we can figure out something reliable that doesn't require a phone signal or wifi ...


End file.
